


Fixing Things

by hrhowling



Series: Get Your Shit Together [1]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Alcohol, Drunken Yelling, Drunkenness, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Violence, Swearing, The 'Get Your Shit Together' AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 14:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11015310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhowling/pseuds/hrhowling
Summary: The anger Erskine felt festers a lot faster than it did in the books. Throw in the interference of a Sensitive working for Mevolent, and you have Ravel losing all semblance of control, finally prompting Skulduggery to get his shit together and talk to him after decades of ignoring not only his own issues but his friend's as well.The AU of my dreams, where my favourite duo of emotionally constipated idiots talk to each other and fix things before it becomes irreparable.





	Fixing Things

**Author's Note:**

> I love these morons, but honestly, they're stupid. What else is new, though?

The anger Erskine felt festers a lot faster than it did in the books. Throw in the interference of a Sensitive working for Mevolent, and you have Ravel losing all semblance of control after a particularly gruelling mission results in the Dead Men being forced to leave a number of POWs behind. This takes place a little less than a century after the Spiders spent an entire year manipulating him.

It’s a rather brutal affair. He throws himself at Ghastly and tries to pummel him, managing to break his jaw before being dragged away – shrieking like a demented banshee – by Anton. A savage kick crushes Larrikin’s nose, and the sight of blood streaming down the poor man’s face gives him an ugly feeling of twisted satisfaction. He gives Anton a concussion and Saracen two very sore black eyes, and sets Dexter on fire. All the while he’s screaming at them, saying they _abandoned_ him, left him to _rot_ , that he’s _dead because of them_. They _gave up_  and he’ll be _damned_ if this fucking war ends and they don’t know how he felt.

It’s Skulduggery who finally stops him, grabbing him from behind and catching him in a vicious chokehold that he can’t get out of. The demented screeches and accusations become shouts of “LET ME GO! LET GO OF ME YOU FUCK! GET OFF ME!”, slowly growing more and more desperate and terrified as Skulduggery constricts his airway, morphing into terrified sobs just before he loses consciousness. Once he’s certain that the man isn’t just faking, he gently lowers him to he ground, almost as if he is handling a creature made of glass. In a way, he supposes, he is. And he’s partly to blame for it, too.

When Erskine comes to, he’s in a cool, dark room made of stone, with great wooden structures surrounding him. His head is pounding and his mouth feels dry. Of course, there’s panic, the horrifying chill that comes with finding himself back in a damp, mouldy cell full of instruments of torture, shackled, bound, his clothes reduced to rags already and the footsteps of his tormentors slowly approaching. He can’t breathe. There’s ice water filling his lungs, seeping into every part of him and leaving him shivering, fingers bluer than those of a corpse. This can’t be happening. This… no, nonononono-.

**_*TINK!*_ **

That’s probably the first time he’s ever been scared by a bottle of whiskey. Before anyone can blink, he’s sent if flying into the nearest wall, exploding in a shower of glass and alcohol. 

“Strange, I thought that one was your favourite.”

Skulduggery. Of course it’s Skulduggery.

“Where the hell are we?”

“Corrival’s wine cellar. Corrival said you’d be less likely to kill us all from down here.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Have a drink.”

The look in Erskine’s eyes is like seeing a stranger from the enemy lines. Angry, unfamiliar, brimming with hatred. With a growl, he takes the offered bottle, yanks out the cork and gulps down nearly a quarter of it at once, then choking and spluttering as his throat burns and his eyes water.

“What’s the point of this? You gonna make me drink myself to death?”

“Not to _death_ , but until you’re in a more agreeable mood, yes.”

“Oh, because that makes _everything_  better. You think I’m just going to drink away my sorrows and everything will just be fine and fucking dandy again? I’ll eat my own dick before that happens.”

“Of course I don’t think that. I think you’re going to drink until the whiskey loosens your tongue and we have a conversation that we should’ve had the moment you got back to us.”

“I have nothing more to say to you.”

“Just drink already.”

And despite all the voices telling him not to, he does. He downs the first bottle in record time and almost throws it back up as a result. It doesn’t stop him from accepting another, snatching it out of Skulduggery’s hand and nearly breaking the neck trying to get the cork out. He already feels dizzy, but honestly the prospect of getting too drunk to function seems far too appealing for him to really care about the repercussions. As he drinks, Skulduggery begins chatting, meaning he drank more, in the hopes of the alcohol rendering him deaf, which meant he also gets more drunk.

“Ye fucking done making small talk?” he snaps, his words slurring together already.

“That depends. Are you going to start saying anything?”

“Oh, I’ll fucking say something, you… you shitwit.

“Well, that’s just mean.”

He takes another swig from his third bottle, the liquid now sliding easily down his throat. “You fuckers abandoned me. You left me to _die_  in that _hell_. I wanted nothing more than for it to stop, I tried to crack my own skull open!”

Silence. Which is just as well because Erskine has already already decided that if Skulduggery says anything, he’ll break his ribs.

“I honestly thought you’d come and rescue me. Hehe… Hilarious, isn’t it? I thought you would care enough to save me.”

He keeps it up in this fashion for who knows how long, getting louder and angrier the more he drinks, until he’s screaming at the skeleton sat before him, with tears streaming down his face. He must look a sight, sitting on the floor of General Deuce’s cellar shrieking at the top of his lungs and crying with a bottle clutched in one hand.

“And when someone finally gets me out of that shithole, it’s not even you! No, you just left me for dead! Do you have _any_ idea what it’s like to hold on for so long only to find that you’ve already been dropped into that fucking abyss where the life gets sucked out of you until there is _nothing left_ but pain and desolation?! No! No, you fucking don’t! This is _your fault_ and I hate you! You hear that?! _I hate you_!”

He’s gasping and gulping at the air by now, shaking and sweating from the exertion of shouting for what had to at least be an hour. Skulduggery hadn’t said a word throughout all of it, only moving to get Erskine another bottle when his current one seemed to be running out.

“You’re right.”

Okay, never mind. If Erskine wasn’t so drunk right now, he’d be making good on his promise of breaking the dead man’s ribs.

“Fuck off,” is all he can manage, his throat too sore for him to form longer sentences. “I-I hate you… I hate you…”

“And you should. You should hate me. Because I was the one who said you were dead. You hadn’t even been gone a week.”

He should be angry right now. He should be livid, and screaming all over again because Skulduggery is right there, and he’s just admitted to giving up on him. For leaving him.

“But none of us ever gave up.”

What..?

“You’re lying,” Erskine croaks weakly. There are fresh tears welling up in his eyes once more.

“Everywhere we went, we’d look for you. We dug up entire mass graves looking for you, because we wanted to give you a proper burial. Anton tore down the foundations of a whole fortress because Larrikin thought he could hear your voice through the walls.”

“Liar. You’d have… you’d have said something.”

“What? What would we have said?”

“Anything! You could’ve said _anything_ , but no! You fuckers just fucking joked and pretended that I’d never left not even five minutes after I walked into camp! After an entire _year_.”

“And were you any different? Of course not. You didn’t say a word about it, Ravel. In fact, it was you who started the joking. We just played along.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that.

“But I can’t blame you without turning into a hypocrite. I never said anything about my own experiences. I never once tried to help you cope with what you went through. I stood by and let you hurt because I foolishly believed that if you really needed my help, you’d come and talk to me about it… Actually, no… No, that’s a lie, forget I said it. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to confront my own pain. My cowardice lead you to this.”

And now Skulduggery waits. Waits for Erskine to say something so that he can listen for once. Because he’s spent too long ignoring him. And he’s expecting more yelling. Maybe some punches. He’s hoping Erskine will take it all out on him, because it’s what he deserves after what he’s put him through. Yes, the others also share some of the blame, but Skulduggery is the most responsible. He’s had every opportunity over the past few decades to do something, and he’s ignored them. Now look where it’s gotten them.

But instead of rage, he gets pure, unadulterated hurt. Erskine just falls to pieces in front of him, curling up and shaking with the desperate, pained wails of a man so broken he can’t even find it in himself to take revenge anymore. And that’s so much more heartbreaking.

He wants to start crying too, but he knows that even if he were capable of tears, he has no right to let them spill. Not here. Not now. Not when Erskine is the one whose needs are so much greater than his. So he pushes these feelings away into the usual corner to gather dust.

Eventually he realises that he’s right back where he started; sitting back and watching things unfold, and he hates himself for it. He moves over towards Erskine, wraps his arms around him and holds on. There’s not even a cry of protest, the man just keeps crying and clings onto him like a lifeline; the only solid thing left in the raging sea of despair that he’d been thrown into.

They don’t move from that spot in the cellar for hours…

* * *

It’s not fixed right away. Of course not. If you broke a precious vase and tried gluing it back together, would you have it looking good as new within minutes? No, it would take you ages; you’d have cracks and bits of glue everywhere, and you wouldn’t even have every single piece of the damn thing left, because they’ve shattered into dust or gotten well and truly lost, and the cracks will never disappear, not entirely. They’re still there, maybe nearly invisible, but if you know where to look, you’ll find them. So no, Erskine doesn’t leave the wine cellar as if his entire existence never went to shit. He’s hungover and barely able to stand, hasn’t eaten in ages and his eyes are more red than gold. He can’t look his friends, or Corrival, or Saoirce in the eye and it hurts to talk. He just wants to pass out on the nearest couch and no one stops him when he does just that. In fact, it’s days before he says a word to anyone, and it’s an apology to Corrival for wasting so much of his best whiskey.

But slowly, the Dead Men manage to pick up the pieces. Slowly, Erskine is able to look at them with genuine fondness once more, and in the moments when everything becomes too much for him, he trusts them enough to help him stay calm and grounded. It’s difficult, and frustrating, and sometimes he just wants to give up and leave, but every time he tries, they’re right there, refusing to leave him again.

And centuries later, when the war is over, and another has been fought, they’re still right there.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want more snippets from this AU besides the ficlets I put on AO3, then my Skulduggery Pleasant blog is called jumpingthroughwindows. My main blog is called hrhowling.


End file.
